There are several types of permanent artificial tooth caps. Dental bridges are intended to fill gaps between teeth by securing prefabricated artificial teeth to the remaining natural teeth. Crowns are cemented in place over a carefully prepared tooth that has been specially shaped and ground to receive the crown. Posts that receive permanent crowns may be fastened to studs inserted into upper or lower jaw bones. Crowns are functional realistic tooth caps temporarily or permanently cemented in place to repair a damaged natural tooth. Partials are functional teeth that fill gaps from missing teeth which can be inserted and removed at will by the user. All of these prosthetics are custom made and are generally intended for extended functional use and wear rather than for novelty or strictly non-functional ornamentation or appearance.
Novelty teeth for the purposes of changing the appearance of a user's tooth or teeth temporarily are known in the relevant art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,569,036 to Goldiner, et al., the instant inventor, discloses an anatomically disproportionate prefabricated fang shaped tooth cap. The aforementioned patent, U.S. Pat. No. 5,569,036 to the instant inventor is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety. The tooth cap includes an interior cavity that is filled with a resilient, flexible impression material. The set impression material provides a soft, flexible impression of the user's tooth inside the cap which adheres by suction and surface tension at a saliva/impression material interface.
From the inventor's experience, a disadvantage associated with resilient dental impression materials is the minimal formation of physio-mechanical interlocks with natural contour, interstitial spaces or surface profile variations of the natural tooth such as ridges, undercuts, depressions, pits, cracks, pores, etc.
In another example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,547,381 to Nutting, discloses a synthetic novelty tooth cap that is used in conjunction with a low melt thermoplastic to form a partial plate that is affixed to adjacent teeth. The Nutting reference incorporates ridges and depressions within the synthetic novelty tooth cap to provide greater expansion area for the low melt thermoplastic. One disadvantage associated with the Nutting invention, is that the partial plate arrangement is cosmetically unsightly as the partial plate is generally visible, detracting from the overall novelty appearance of the fang tooth. Secondly, fitting of the synthetic novelty tooth assembly entails a level of skill necessary to provide a reasonably secure fit which usually necessitates a trial and error fitting effort by the user.
In another example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,775,909 to Langer, discloses a synthetic novelty tooth in the form a fang. The synthetic novelty tooth is constructed of digestible constituents to reduce the risk of internal damage due to accidental consumption of the tooth. The synthetic novelty tooth is affixed to a user's tooth by the adherence properties of the digestible constituents alone. A main disadvantage of this synthetic novelty tooth arrangement is the limited useful life of the tooth due to attack on the synthetic novelty tooth by natural digestive juices and enzymes present in saliva.
In a final example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,951,291 to Albert, et al., discloses a novelty denture arrangement that simulates the appearance of an assemblage of teeth. The denture arrangement is held in place by somewhat resilient materials such as cured silicone rubbers which intercalate the gaps of the teeth.
The use of silicone rubbers may be suitable for short term usage but will generally degrade over time due to physical tearing during repeated installations and removals by the user. Likewise, the resilient nature of the silicone rubber limits the attachment strength due to minimal formation of physio-mechanical interlocks with the underlying nature teeth as described above.
Therefore, a need exists in the relevant art to produce a high quality novelty dental arrangement which requires little or no skill to use, provides a tight fit with one or more underlying natural teeth, is comfortable to wear and remains in place with no unsightly attachment materials visible.